online community focused on sharing and reminiscing about video, audio, and images that stir our memories of the past – old television, theme songs, commercials, print advertisements, the sights and sounds you remember
In Modern Family TV show, Jay takes the family dog to the vet, already a situation that carries some tension. Trying to reassure him, a nurse begins speaking in a soft, overly sweet voice as if she were the dog, telling him everything will be okay. It’s meant to be comforting, but it feels a little forced and awkward.
Jay immediately cuts through it with a simple, deadpan response:
“She doesn’t sound like that.”
The humor hits because it completely undercuts the moment. Instead of going along with the nurse’s attempt to create something emotional, Jay reacts the way many people would in real life—by pointing out how ridiculous it sounds. That contrast between the nurse’s exaggerated tone and Jay’s blunt honesty is what makes the scene land so well.
Jay Thomas, who appeared as Eddie Lebec in nine episodes of the TV sitcom Cheers, died from cancer on August 24, 2017 at the age of 69. On Cheers, Lebec was a French-Canadian goalie for the Boston Bruins whom Carla (Rhea Perlman) meets while he is riding a hot streak. However, as soon as Eddie and Carla start dating, he slumps badly. (To thwart the jinx, Eddie and Carla continue to date, but they go through a ‘breakup’ ritual before every game.)
The Eddie Lebec character was popular, so the show’s writers decided to have Carla and Eddie marry. However, Thomas, who hosted a radio show, got himself into hot water one day when a caller innocently asked him what it was like to be a Cheers cast member. The irrepressible Tomas replied, “It’s brutal. I have to kiss Rhea Perlman.” Perlman happened to be listening to the broadcast–and Thomas never made another appearance on Cheers. The show’s writers had to come up with a way to drop Eddie Lebec from the show.
In his final episode on Cheers, Eddie’s hockey career was over so he had gotten a job in an ice show as a skating penguin. The writers came up with the memorable idea of killing Eddie off in a Zamboni accident in an episode cleverly titled “Death Takes a Holiday on Ice.” (The premise is quite ridiculous: Have you ever seen how slowly a Zamboni moves? Its design makes it almost impossible for a Zamboni to run over anyone.) Despite the absurdity of the plot twist, Cheers fans loved it. Eddie’s death also led to a further plot development: At Eddie’s funeral it was revealed that he was a bigamist whose second wife was strikingly similar to Carla! According to writer Ken Levine, this idea worked well as it made Eddie look like a heel, thus viewers were happy he was no longer part of the show.
This article first appeared in our former website YouRemeberThat.com on August of 2017 and written by member Lava1964. Eddie LeBec played by Jay Thomas died on Thursday at 69 after a battle with cancer.
Some of you may be wondering how you got re-directed to here from YouRememberThat.com. The site was launched back in 2007 when there were no internet video standards. MP4’s were rare which is now the standard for mobile devices. We had over 30,000 videos that would need to be converted and reposted. The task was tremendous. The software that ran the site was ancient and needed to an upgrade that would require a lot of work.
YouRememberthat.com was not my first choice of names for the website but everyone was internet name harvesting, that is buying up all sorts of names in hopes that someone would pay big bucks for it. Then, I discovered that TheRetroSite.com was available and I purchased it. It was actually easier to start up a new site with new software and mp4 videos.
So welcome to the new site and I hope you enjoy it!!
For those old enough to remember, Night Gallery was created and
hosted by the great god of imagination Rod Serling, as a follow-up to
The Twilight Zone. The opening was set in a shadowy museum, where
Serling unveiled a dark and disturbing collection of canvases as preface
to a highly diverse anthology of tales in the fantasy, horror, and
supernatural vein. The first story from the 1969 pilot of Night Gallery,
entitled The Cemetery. A black sheep nephew (McDowell, naturally)
murders his ailing uncle (George McReady) for the inheritance, only to
find some disturbing changes in the old man’s painting of the family
graveyard. Some good acting as well from Ossie Davis. The night I first
watched this I was all alone, mom was working late, dad was sleeping,
and I was on the floor in front of the tv having the living daylights
scared out of me. I just loved it!!
This was originally posted to YouRememberThat.com by member Naomi on August 27, 2007.
Linda Richman’s (Mike Myers) hero was Barbra Streisand. She
constantly “dedicated” the show to her, often claiming her to be the
greatest actress in all of history. In what could be considered to be
the sketch’s most memorable moment, Myers was joined by two special
guests Madonna and Roseanne Barr as two other Jewish women (and they
were authentic, take my word!). They discussed Streisand’s movie, The
Prince of Tides, on the show. Near the end of the sketch, the women
compared Barbra to “buttah”-and suddenly, a voice announced, “All this
talk about food, I’m getting hungry, girls.” It was Streisand herself in
a surprise appearance; none of the actors had any idea that she was to
appear. All three managed to remain in character as the audience went
wild. Though Streisand only stayed long enough to give each character a
kiss and wave to the audience, the moment has become one of the most
memorable in the show’s history.
Originally uploaded to YouRememberThat.com by member Naomi on September 22, 2007.
Unisex Salon was the name of this skit in Season 7 Episode 2 of the
Carol Burnett Show. Tim Conway attempts to get a home life interview
with Chiquita who was played by Charo. The fun begins when he has
trouble with her mother played by Carol Burnett.
This clip was originally uploaded to YouRememberThat.com by member Naomi on December, 19 2007.
In the last season of Seinfeld, “The Blood” episode aired October 16,
1997. George Costanza played by Jason Alexander decides to add food to
his sex life when his girlfriend lights a vanilla candle making him
instantly hungry. It later creates problems as George cannot eat without
becoming aroused. George then attempts his “Trifecta” which is food,
sex and TV.
The video was originally uploaded to YouRememberThat.com by member PFC on January 4, 2011
In April 1991, TV icon Michael Landon was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. A month later, on May 9, 1991, Landon was in high spirits when he made a guest appearance on The Tonight Show. He died seven weeks later at the age of 54. I apologize for the poor quality of the clip, but it’s worth watching. Video clip was originally uploaded by YouRememberThat.com member Lava1964 on September 6, 2008.
